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[THEME MUSIC] KERRI MILLER: Coming up on the second hour of MIdmorning. I'm headed upstairs to Studio M where Cantus will sing and Robert Bly will read some of his poetry. They're together in a collaboration for a world premiere tomorrow night at Ted Mann Concert Hall. But they are here in the studio when Midmorning continues. First the news.

PAUL BROWN: From NPR News in Washington, I'm Paul Brown. President Bush has met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the two leaders agreed their countries will cooperate on production of ethanol. Mr. Bush who is on a five-nation Latin America trip touted the need to develop fuels other than petroleum.

GEORGE W BUSH: In a globalized world, if the demand for oil goes up in China or India, it runs up the price of gasoline in our respective countries. And therefore, diversification away from oil product is in the economic interests of our respective countries.

PAUL BROWN: The president is also to visit Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Mexico. European Union nations have agreed to an energy policy package that will their slash carbon emissions and most controversially require a huge boost in the use of renewable energy sources. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency, fought hard to achieve a compromise on this attempt to fight global warming. Teri Schultz reports from Brussels.

TERI SCHULTZ: German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been skeptical she could bridge the divergent viewpoints, many opposed to increasing their renewable energy sources to 20% of overall consumption. Some members were vehemently opposed to any forced usage. Others said they can't afford these methods. Unanimous approval of the final document that 17 points accepted by 27 members gave Merkel in her words no small amount of satisfaction as she explained through an interpreter.

INTERPRETER: The European Union has shown its capacity to act and that in such an important area we are prepared to, as it were, hoist our colors to the mast.

TERI SCHULTZ: To achieve the compromise, however, the German deal had to grant each country the right to negotiate its own way to meet the renewable energy target. For NPR News. I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.

PAUL BROWN: The economy continued to add jobs last month. The government reports companies created 97,000 payroll jobs in February. At the same time, the nation's unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percent to 4.5%. Here's NPR'S Jack Speer with this report.

JACK SPEER: While there were some notable exceptions, jobs growth last month was in line with analysts' estimates. Construction continued to lose jobs, more than 60,000 due to severe weather and continued weakness in housing. Manufacturing also lost jobs. However, the Labor Department reports those losses were more than offset by strong jobs growth in some other areas, including the service sector. There were employment gains in health care and food services. The government also revised up the previous two months employment numbers to show the economy added 55,000 more jobs than initially thought.

The tenth of a percent decline in the unemployment rate in February was only moderately changed from the previous month. Average hourly earnings increased by 4/10 of 1%. Jack Speer, NPR News, Washington.

PAUL BROWN: Wall Street is reacting positively to the employment news. The Dow Jones Industrial average is up 18 points at 12,279. The NASDAQ composite is up two points at 2,390. This is NPR News. Russia has denounced the sentencing of one of its UN diplomats in a US court. He was found guilty of laundering more than $300,000 in bribes through the Oil For Food Program for Iraq. NPR'S Gregory feifer has more from Moscow.

GREGORY FEIFER: The court said Vladimir Kuznetsov had taken a share of the bribes he helped launder through the UN humanitarian program for Iraq. Kuznetsov, who once chaired a UN Budget Committee, was convicted of helping a Russian UN staff member pocket money from companies seeking UN contracts in Iraq. The Russian Foreign ministry said it had grave doubts about the trial. A spokesman said the UN had no right to lift Kuznetsov's diplomatic immunity and that his bail had been set too high.

The charges came out of a criminal investigation into the prewar Oil For Food Program designed to ease the effects of sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker headed the investigation into widespread charges of corruption involving a number of countries. Gregory feifer, NPR News, Moscow.

PAUL BROWN: A day before a planned multinational meeting on Iraq's future in Baghdad, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki walked through a Baghdad neighborhood. The idea was to point out better security with a new crackdown on sectarian and insurgent violence underway. But pointing up the security challenges, Maliki stroll was unannounced. Exactly where he went was not revealed and it happened during a four-hour ban on car traffic for Friday prayers.

Daylight saving time starts on Sunday, an earlier start this year than in the past when it's been the first Sunday in April. Computer engineers are preparing for possible problems with computers programmed for the later change. I'm Paul Brown, NPR News in Washington.

ANNOUNCER 1: Support for NPR comes from ADM, looking to nature for discoveries in food, feed, and fuel. ADM, resourceful by nature.

PERRY FINELLI: From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Perry Finelli. State lawmakers delve into the matter of the troubled Minneapolis veterans home today. Committees in the House and Senate plan to press the home's operators on their plan for fixing care deficiencies that have the home under increased state and federal scrutiny. Former Senate DFL leader Dean Johnson has won a seat on the University of Minnesota board of regents. The legislature filled four board vacancies last night during a joint session of the House and the Senate.

Lawmakers rejected two sitting regents, Peter bell and Cynthia Leisher. Both were backed by Governor Tim Pawlenty. Johnson lost his Senate re-election bid in November. He described his election to the board of regents as the return of his self esteem.

TIM PAWLENTY: I have a number of friends in the legislature and I also received votes from Republicans. And 28 years, here you work with colleagues, you hopefully gain their respect. And so I'm somewhat humbled and almost tearful tonight that the vote was as it is.

PERRY FINELLI: The other new regents are Venora Hung, a law school student at the U, Linda Cohen, a psychologist from Minnetonka, and Marine Cisneros, a graduate student from Duluth. A bankruptcy judge has delayed a ruling on a request by Northwest Airlines Flight attendants for a reduction in company imposed pay and benefit cuts. The Association of Flight Attendants has asked the judge to overturn a ruling allowing Northwest to impose $195 million in annual concessions.

Billions of dollars in agricultural disaster aid are tangled up in federal legislation that would withdraw US troops from Iraq by next year, creating a dilemma for some farm state members of congress. The bill would include about $4 billion for farmers who have suffered weather-related losses. Farm state members from both parties have made disaster aid a top priority for the last year. High temperatures in Minnesota today, mid 30s to low. 40s right now in the Twin Cities, partly sunny skies with haze, the temperature is 40 degrees. This is Minnesota Public Radio News.

ANNOUNCER 2: Programming is supported by Crompton Seager Tufte, specializing in patent trademark and copyright law from mine to market online at cstlaw.com.

[UPBEAT JAZZ MUSIC]

KERRI MILLER: This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Kerri Miller and I'm in studio M with Robert Bly and the choral group Cantus. At first glance, this is a collaboration that might catch some by surprise, a poet renowned for his translation and interpretations of ancient texts and for his experimentation with foreign styles of poetry and a band of hometown singers begun by four earnest sophomores at Saint Olaf's in the fall of 1995.

One music critic described them as quintessentially down to Earth. And yet tomorrow night, when Robert Bly reads and Cantu sings, this extraordinary partnership will bring together power and wisdom and grace and insight. They'll perform Saturday night at 7:30 at the Ted Mann Concert Hall. But today, they are all with us, the whole group of Cantus and Robert Bly with us this morning in studio M. So gentlemen, welcome. Good to have you here.

SPEAKER 1: Thank you very much.

KERRI MILLER: And Mr. Bly, thank you very much for coming in. A publisher said of your work years ago, it wakes people up. And it sparks ideas and controversy. And I wonder if you think that's still true of your writing.

ROBERT BLY: Oh, certainly. I'm a Norwegian, so it's in my blood. you know, to bug the Swedes.

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: What do you think it is about your writing that wakes people up?

ROBERT BLY: Um, well, I don't know but in poetry, there needs to be images that people say, oh, I never thought of that.

KERRI MILLER: Yeah.

ROBERT BLY: Something that penetrates through all this noise we hear from Minnesota Public Radio, you know?

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: Oh, I see, break through the static of MPR.

ROBERT BLY: That's the way it is.

KERRI MILLER: You know, when I looked back over many of the reviews of your work for years, the word controversial is attached to your name very closely in a lot of those reviews and I wonder if you've just gotten accustomed to that and you don't even really think about that anymore, if it sometimes gets in the way of the work.

ROBERT BLY: Probably, it does.

KERRI MILLER: How?

ROBERT BLY: Well, you know, I believe in a lot of sweetness in poetry. I believe in a lot of love poetry. And if people look for controversy in love poetry, we got a problem. [CHUCKLES]

KERRI MILLER: When you say you believe in sweetness in poetry , what do you mean?

ROBERT BLY: Well, I believe in the tone of Walt Whitman, which is gentle.

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

ROBERT BLY: And a great love of nature and a great love of other people. I mean, his love is greater than mine, but that's my model for something who-- someone who can talk and bring people closer to each other, or in the way of Carl Jung, bringing people closer to their own souls.

KERRI MILLER: Do you think Walt Whitman though was the kind of poet that sparked a lot of energy from the audience, as you are described as doing, that created controversy?

ROBERT BLY: I don't think so, no. I'm not aware that Whitman gave a lot of readings. And if he did, they would have been very slow and very gentle and I would have loved to been there, but no, I don't think he wanted controversy.

KERRI MILLER: So how is it that you model yourself after him?

ROBERT BLY: Well, maybe I just do that to soften myself down, you know? I mean, I began in the '60s with the anti-war movement against the war in Vietnam. And it was very important at that time that some of the writers and poets get up and say what they felt because they were threatening to put us in jail and I got put in jail three or four times during that time. But that was a part of the fun of being a poet.

KERRI MILLER: Do you think that was a time when poetry somehow was more connected to people's everyday lives?

ROBERT BLY: Well, I think so, but it was also the '50s were very tamped-down time and you didn't hear many people saying outrageous things in public.

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

ROBERT BLY: So in a way, it was the job of the poets to get out in public at the time of the Vietnam War and say outrageous things. And people would be so relieved to hear that. That make any sense to you?

KERRI MILLER: Yes, kind of a venting of--

ROBERT BLY: Yeah, and a model for the younger ones to take some stands as well. Do poets still do that today?

ROBERT BLY: Yes.

KERRI MILLER: Do they?

ROBERT BLY: Yes.

KERRI MILLER: Who's writing that? Who still does that?

ROBERT BLY: We've had a good, um-- well, a large thing against the Iraq war here. And people like Jane Hirshfield, for example, participated in things like that. It isn't at all like the '60s. It isn't at all like the attack on the Vietnam War. But we do the best we can.

KERRI MILLER: Is that all right--

ROBERT BLY: No.

KERRI MILLER: --that-- should poetry be more rebellious against the Iraq War?

ROBERT BLY: I'm just talking about the slow way because everyone's been put to sleep by Bush. The how to wake up is the issue in this country.

KERRI MILLER: Tell me about this collaboration. Is it true that Cantus approached you?

ROBERT BLY: Mm-hmm.

KERRI MILLER: What did you think? How receptive were you initially to the idea of this?

ROBERT BLY: I just said, let's do it.

KERRI MILLER: You did?

[CHUCKLING]

ROBERT BLY: These guys are great singers. They're fantastic.

KERRI MILLER: Well, you didn't even have to think twice about what this would be?

ROBERT BLY: No.

KERRI MILLER: Why not?

ROBERT BLY: Everything will work together.

KERRI MILLER: Why not though?

ROBERT BLY: When you got good singers, I trust it. And I think Eric is very smart. So we'll do what we do and it'll be a mixture of-- and you know, what it'll it be tonight is the human voice--

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

ROBERT BLY: --alone and then these incredible singers. It's sort of like the human voice is kind of a handle of a pump and then they are like the water flowing out of the pump. Does that make any sense to you?

KERRI MILLER: What a good description.

ROBERT BLY: Yeah.

KERRI MILLER: Eric, is that-- is that the first time you've heard that description or does that make sense to you?

ERIC LICHTE: Yeah, and it gave me chills just hearing that. It's perfect. One thing that I think Robert will sell himself short on is that, sure, we're singing poetry, but he sings as well--

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

ERIC LICHTE: --and in his own way. And I think the difference between our way of singing these poems and his is going to be a fascinating combination.

KERRI MILLER: Eric Lichte, by the way, for our listeners, is the artistic director of Cantus. And every member of the group is with us this morning in the studio and we're going to hear from them in just a moment. Tell me how this idea came up and whether you were a little intimidated to call Robert Bly and say, let's do this.

ROBERT BLY: Oh, man, was I ever. I had read of him for a long, long, long time. And what happened was we got a big grant from Chamber Music America.

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

ERIC LICHTE: And we were allowed to commission a piece from a Twin Cities composer ED Hill. And she found Robert's translations of Kadir, the Indian poet. And we just fell in love with these works. And we wanted to find a way that we could bring this all together and we thought, well, why not just see if we could ask Robert? And you always have to try to ask. This was kind of our motto about everything.

So I sent a letter. I think I wrote Robert a letter and I was making sure all the punctuation was good. You have this man of letters reading your writing and you just feel very self-conscious. But yeah, and even calling him at first. But he's so-- he's been so warm and receptive and just a wonderful collaborator and funny as all get out. We just have had a blast this week working with him.

KERRI MILLER: Tell me how the work fits together, what Robert will do tomorrow night, what you'll do. Where's the link?

ERIC LICHTE: Sure. The program that we're doing is trying to go through the areas of or the stages of a person's life. And we begin with birth. We go through love songs. We have all of our trials that we go through in life. And we end up with reflections of death. And Robert's poem weaves-- Robert's poetry and his translations weave in and out of that. But also, there was a very natural connection between the fact that this is a men's group and we are very proud to sing as men in a world where that's maybe not necessarily considered the most manly thing to do.

Robert's had a lot to say about men being men. And we thought that there was a very natural connection there philosophically. So we went at this when we programmed it, at least, I did, taking in everything that Robert has written and tried to come up with something that would seem like a good fit for between the two of us.

KERRI MILLER: Mr. Bly, do you think that's true, that there is some perception out there that it is not the most manliest of endeavors to be part of a choral group?

ROBERT BLY: I pay no attention to people like that.

KERRI MILLER: You don't?

ROBERT BLY: No.

KERRI MILLER: Why not?

ROBERT BLY: Well, it's ridiculous. Men have been singers and poets and enjoyers from the beginning of time.

KERRI MILLER: Why don't we hear from Cantus and then we'll hear from Robert Bly, some of the poetry that he will be reading tomorrow night.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

ROBERT BLY: Mm.

KERRI MILLER: That's the choral group Cantus. That is just-- Eric, who was keeping that high steady note that went on? Who is that?

ERIC LICHTE: Aaron Humble and Mani Cadet.

KERRI MILLER: Amazing, the power, the power that you have to have, the vocal power to do that. One of the things I noticed is that they're looking at each other as they sing and they're not always looking at the same people in the group. So what are they doing?

ERIC LICHTE: Well, when we started Cantus, three out of the four guys that began this group were cellists. We'd played in cello quartets and those sorts of things. And so we wanted to bring the idea of chamber music, like a string quartet, to this idea of singing. And that's very rarely done. When you think of choral groups, you think of Robert Shaw and Dale Warland and they have this fabulous conductor and the choir.

And this experiment, which is Cantus, is really about putting the music making into the hands of the singers. And we operate very collaboratively in our rehearsal process and all of those sorts of things.

KERRI MILLER: But are they looking for signals from each other? And why are they looking at different singers through the course of the music?

ERIC LICHTE: Different parts of the music will be led by certain people. Usually, the melody or whatever is important will get passed around between voices and then someone from that section will lead that and it'll move and then you'll be sharing a line with somebody else. So you connect that way. And it has this wonderful effect, I think, for audiences that aren't used to usually a choral group stands there and looks out at the audience.

KERRI MILLER: Why?

ERIC LICHTE: It draws folks into what is going on stage and it makes them feel a part of this. We always talk about the fact that we stand in a semicircle and the audience then becomes the other half of that circle.

KERRI MILLER: Mr. Bly, then this is the first time I've seen them this close perform and there is a kind of intimacy to the way they do this, isn't there?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah. And you see why I like to work with them?

KERRI MILLER: Yes.

ROBERT BLY: Because the most beautiful thing about women as well as men is the depth of soul.

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm

ROBERT BLY: And it comes out here. You can feel it.

KERRI MILLER: What do you hear when you hear that music?

ROBERT BLY: I hear individual grieving voices, not complaining to God, but giving thanks to God for their Grief.

KERRI MILLER: Eric, do you think working with Robert Bly and hearing the kinds of things that he just said has changed the way the group approaches music? And not just for this performance, but overall.

ERIC LICHTE: Yes, it was very interesting. We had our first time together this last Monday and we did a run through of the whole program and we and we sang things. And then Robert would read his poems. And we'd just kind of sit there, jaws dropped and realizing the work that he also did to understand what we were trying to sing about and how he could bring his poetry to that. I'd made some suggestions but he found other things that were just wonderful.

And to have a kindred soul in that process that really gets you and can express things and write things in a way that none of us-- we can sing, but he has that other ability. And so we had another run through on Wednesday and the change in what these guys did, it was just-- it went from about a 5 to a 10 in one day. And it was just-- it was amazing to watch.

KERRI MILLER: If you're listening in this morning on Midmorning, Cantus the choral group and poet Robert Bly are in studio M with us this morning ahead of a performance tomorrow night at the Ted Mann Concert Hall at 7:30. Cantus will, of course, sing. Robert Bly will, of course, read some of his poetry. And the power that comes from this collaboration is really striking. If you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-242-2828.

If you're listening in the metro area, 651-227-6000. And if you're listening online, go to minnesotapublicradio.org and click on Send A Question. You can ask questions about the music. You can ask questions about Robert Bly's writing, anything. 1-800-242-2828, 651-227-6000. If you're listening online, go to minnesotapublicradio.org and click on Send A Question.

So Mr. Bly, I wonder if you'll read a poem, perhaps one that you are reading tomorrow night. Would that be all right?

ROBERT BLY: Sure.

KERRI MILLER: All right.

ROBERT BLY: All right, um-- all right, let's see here. There's a poem by Gary Snyder. Do you like him?

KERRI MILLER: I think Gary Snyder is wonderful. He was here for Talking Volumes.

ROBERT BLY: Was he? All right, here's a little one of mine and I'll do it Gary Snyder. "Gratitude To All Teachers."

KERRI MILLER: OK.

ROBERT BLY: I was up in Moose Lake walking on the frozen lake. I tried it in the summer but it works better in the winter. When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake, we place our feet where they have never been. We walk upon unwalked, but we are uneasy. Who is down there but our old teachers? Water that once could take no human weight-- we were students then-- holds up our feet and goes on ahead of us for a mile. Beneath us, the teachers. And around us, this stillness.

KERRI MILLER: What do you-- what resonates in that poem for you?

ROBERT BLY: Just you know, how the older you get, the more gratitude you feel for your teachers, whether they are singing teachers or poetry teachers or your old teachers in high school. Is that clear?

KERRI MILLER: Is there a poetry teacher that is especially-- was especially influential for you and especially meaningful?

ROBERT BLY: Well, I think so. Donald Hall and I did a lot of work together for many years and still write to each other three or four times a week, sending poems. And Coleman Barks and I have been great-- had great joy in adopting Rumi as a teacher.

KERRI MILLER: Are the poems that you send back and forth with Donald Hall meant for anybody else to read or are they really just meant for his eyes?

ROBERT BLY: No, no, they meant for other people. We don't write for each other. [CHUCKELS SOFTLY] So just to see, is this poem any good? Should I spend any more time on this poem or should I let it go? And Donald says, let it go.

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: Does he really say that to you, let it go?

ROBERT BLY: Certainly.

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: Are there times when you're really unsure whether the poem is making it?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah, absolutely. As soon as you finish it, you say, whoa, is this good or is it just terrible? I can't tell.

KERRI MILLER: I am surprised to hear that from you because you would think, for as long as you've done this, you would have that sense of whether this poem cuts it or not.

ROBERT BLY: No, the one who writes the poem, you see, is an uncertain, very delicate kind of a wild creature and has no idea of judgments about poetry at all, just lays it out there.

KERRI MILLER: Is that right?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah. And then you have to have your friends. It's very good to have friends. And say, listen, Robert, that's very sweet and it's nothing, nothing at all.

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: Somebody dares to tell Robert Bly that is nothing at all?

ROBERT BLY: Give it up.

KERRI MILLER: Really?

ROBERT BLY: That's right. That's right.

KERRI MILLER: [CHUCKLES] All right, let's go to the phones-- 1-800-242-2828, 651-227-6000-- to Mike in Mendota Heights. Hi, Mike. You're on Midmorning.

MIKE: Well, hi. Yeah, thanks for taking my call.

KERRI MILLER: Sure.

MIKE: I just wanted to say hi to Robert Bly. And years ago, back in the '60s, I was a student at the U and I was trying to come to personal terms with the Vietnam War and very confused about it and trying to do the right thing. And so I went to a teach in and I also went to Robert Bly, his poetry reading against the Vietnam War.

KERRI MILLER: Mm-hmm.

MIKE: And I even-- I still have the volume somewhere in my library. And I just wanted to thank him for showing that courage way, way back then when a lot of people were not speaking out against the war.

ROBERT BLY: Mm-hmm, thank you very much. Thank you for that. I'm glad it helped you.

KERRI MILLER: Mr. Bly, do you still hear from people that have attended those readings in the '60s and remember a lot of what you've said and read at those?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah, they remember more than I do.

[CHUCKLING]

But after all, they only went to one. I went to 42, you know?

KERRI MILLER: Right. We have an online question here from Anne in Edina who would like to know who the singers are. And she wanted them to introduce themselves each, but we don't really have the microphones set up for that. So Eric, maybe you could do that.

ERIC LICHTE: I will do my best.

KERRI MILLER: Thank you.

ERIC LICHTE: Starting in the low depths of the ensemble, we have Tom McNichols singing bass and Timothy Takach. Our baritones are Dashon Burton and Adam Reinwald. And then the tenors, we kind of mix up between all of the tenors. It's Shahzore Shah and Michael Jones, Gary Ruschman, E Mani Cadet, and Aaron Humble.

KERRI MILLER: Do you always have a set idea of, I need this many tenors. I've got to have this many basses. Or does somebody arrive sometimes with such an extraordinary voice, that you say, we have to fit them in somehow?

ERIC LICHTE: Yeah, the group has fluctuated between 12 members and 9. We've been singing at 9 actually for. I think the most of this ensemble's existence and that has worked for us. When we were little college kids, we needed 12 people to be able to fill a concert hall. And now that we've got our big boy voices, we can sing and fill up a concert hall like Ted Mann no sweat.

KERRI MILLER: What do you think-- there seems to be something about-- and I'm not originally from Minnesota, but there seems to be something about this part of the country that truly appreciates this kind of music, and I wonder if you know why.

ERIC LICHTE: Well, it's really interesting. I just came back last night from Miami, where they had the American Choral Directors Association Convention. And it is just inundated with people from Minnesota. We just completely-- and we're all in-- sort of on the beach and we don't know where we are and walking around and all this art deco architecture and we're just fish out of water. But there is such a tradition here and I think it comes from-- Garrison Keillor has a lot to say about this.

I think the whole Norwegian tradition that came over from that country and the people that settled here. And then places like Saint Olaf College where this group started, they really began an acappella choral music revolution and it just wasn't happening anyplace else in this country the same way it was in Europe at the time. So a complete tradition came out of this area of the country and spread all through the Midwest, through the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of that.

And it's all been sort of influenced by this. So we are living in Mecca when it comes to choral music.

KERRI MILLER: Mr. Bly, is this music that you have come to rather recently or have you had a long appreciation for this tradition of choral music?

ROBERT BLY: No, no, I have a great love of music and always have connected it with poetry, mostly Indian music, poetry from India. But this is my first experience really with these kind of men. I think it's terrific. You know what I'd like to hear? I'd like to hear a couple of notes from the basses--

KERRI MILLER: Great idea.

ROBERT BLY: --then the tenors and then the altos, just to feel that.

KERRI MILLER: Excellent idea. Can you do that, guys?

[CHORAL NOTES]

ROBERT BLY: Oh, gorgeous in itself.

KERRI MILLER: I feel like we're-- I feel like we're hearing 35 or 40 people. The richness of that sound is really extraordinary. Let's go to the phones to Cathy in Plymouth. Hi, Cathy. Thanks for waiting.

CATHY: Yes, thank you very much for taking my call. Yes, Eric, my name is Cathy Leloup and this call is for Eric. He was a student teacher out at Wayzata schools here, had my daughter in the choral program. And I knew from the get go that this guy was going to go far. Eric, I've kept track of your group. I'm also a minister of music out here at one of the churches in Plymouth. And I just love hearing your group and the quality and the musicianship. It's just wonderful.

And I wish you good luck with this concert tomorrow night. I know you folks have just soared and it's so fun to watch a young adult and these young men just do this music. And Robert, I'm sure it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful evening. So that's it. I just wanted to call and--

KERRI MILLER: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY: --say hello.

ERIC LICHTE: Thank you. And say hi to Kristin for me.

KERRI MILLER: And you were student teaching for a while, Eric?

ERIC LICHTE: Yeah, actually, I was teaching at Wayzata High School.

KERRI MILLER: OK.

ERIC LICHTE: I was one of the older guys when we started this group and we were waiting for some of the younger kids to graduate from Saint Olaf before we could go full time. So--

KERRI MILLER: There's a lot of snickers among the group about this. There must be some inside jokes about it.

ERIC LICHTE: Yeah. There's always inside-- you spend as much time together as all of us do, you have to have those inside jokes, otherwise, I think you'd go nuts.

KERRI MILLER: To Abigail in Minneapolis. Hi. Good morning. You're Midmorning.

ABIGAIL: Hello. Thank you. My name is Abigail Jensen. Robert Bly, were part of a memorial for Thomas McGrath in Chicago. And I know that you knew him and worked with him and was his friend-- you were his friend. Excuse me I'd like you to say a bit about him. I think people in Minnesota don't know that much about it's. Hard to find him in the libraries and in the bookstores, although you can find him at city lights in San Francisco, which is wonderful.

KERRI MILLER: All right.

ABIGAIL: So I thought that perhaps you could say something about--

ROBERT BLY: I'll just say a word about Thomas McGrath born up in North Dakota, a farm kid up there. And when he got out of college and he was down in Louisiana for college and graduate school, then he became a radical. He became a fighter. And he was the greatest poet who was working with the leftist Marxist movement.

He wrote a marvelous long poems. And so after years of being hounded by the police and living in various parts of the world, he came back to North Dakota. And I remember James Ride and I drove up there one day to see him. And here was this incredible person, known all over the world teaching in a little town there in North Dakota. And I thought, well, that's so strange that America would do that to one of their poets.

But at least, up there, even though they're all right wing, they said, Tom, oh, you know Tom. And they hired him. And that's one of the greatest blessings that the Scandinavians are willing to stretch, aren't they? And so that's a little bit about Tom.

KERRI MILLER: Would you read another poem that you're going to read tomorrow night at the Ted Mann Concert Hall?

ROBERT BLY: Well, I could read a little one of mine maybe. "Motes of Hay Dust Rise and Fall With Slow Engraved Steps." This is a poem about fall. Like servants who dance in the yard because some prince has been born, what has been born? The winter. Then the Egyptians were right, everything wants a chance to begin, to die in the cool fall air. Each leaf sinks and goes down when we least expect it.

We glance toward the window where something has caught our eye. It's possible autumn is a tomb out of which a child is born and we feel a secret joy and we tell no one. [CHUCKLES]

KERRI MILLER: Robert Bly reading some of his poetry. Tomorrow night he will be with Cantus at the Ted Mann Concert Hall at 7:30 for a collaborative performance. To Scott in Minneapolis. Hi, Scott. You're on Midmorning.

SCOTT: Hi. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Just a comment. I had worked in Asia for about six months, years ago and got to know the local people this was in Nepal. So I got to a group of local Nepalese guys. And towards the end of my stint there, we had gotten together and we were doing some river rafting and we took a break for lunch and these guys pulled out a drum. This was just all guys and they started pumping out this rhythm.

And all in a circle singing and dancing with their arms way up in the air, which we would interpret-- as a Western male, would interpret as very feminine movements that we don't do. You know, we've been inhibited with that. And I just looked at this and I said, these guys are having a blast. And I felt like as a guy from the West that we were really missing out on a lot of joy.

So I'm really enjoying this program, the poetry, the music. The vocals are great. Thanks a lot. I just thought I'd share that that us Western guys are missing out on a lot of stuff.

[CHUCKLING]

KERRI MILLER: Eric, what do you think about that?

ERIC LICHTE: You know, it's one of the things that we're trying to do. We do about 70 concerts around the country touring and almost every one of those places that we go, we are also contracted to do some sort of educational outreach. So we'll go into the schools. A lot of times we'll go into middle schools and deal with guys who have changing voices. And that's a very awkward period in their life and we want to show up and show them that singing is an outlet and especially if you have that through those formative years.

You see souls grow in ways that they wouldn't otherwise. You can take your English classes and your math classes and that's all wonderful, but this is the synthesis of all of that. And I think you're right, I think the West has probably lost something along the way. And we feel very lucky that we get to do this on a daily basis. We don't usually dance around the rehearsal room with our arms up in the air. We get to sing. But it is a real blessing to have that level of inhibition gone from your life.

KERRI MILLER: Could we hear another selection? Maybe they will raise up their arms and

ROBERT BLY: I think it's the next step.

KERRI MILLER: --wiggle a little bit.

[CHUCKLING]

And what are we-- Eric, what are we hearing?

ERIC LICHTE: Well, let's do the-- this is one of the pieces that we're doing the world premiere of this next-- this is a piece by Twin Cities composer Maura Bosch and the text comes from perpetrators of domestic violences through work we did with the Tubman Family Alliance here in Minneapolis.

(SINGING) I, I have been homeless, homeless

I, I have been to China, China

I, I am a quiet person, quiet

I, I like to work, work outdoors

I, I have made mistakes, mistakes

Some, some things you don't know about me

I, I believe in myself, in myself

I, I believe in changing

But it takes, it takes

Time

I believe in, in change

I have been, I have been homeless, homeless

I, I once was married, once married

I, I am a quiet person, quiet

I, I believe in fairness, in fairness

I believe we're equal, we're equal

Some things, some things you don't know about me

I lost my cool trying to protect my daughter

The cops showed up, and I could not fight

I could not fight

Nobody to help me, nobody

I believe, I believe in myself, in myself

I believe, I believe in change

What it takes, it takes

I, I believe in change

I have failed

I have been homeless, homeless

I, I once was married

I, I am a quiet person, quiet

I, I believe in fair-- in fairness

I believe we're equal, we're equal

I believe we're e-- we're equal

KERRY MILLER: That's Cantus performing one of the songs that they'll perform tomorrow night. If you'd like information, tickets for tomorrow night's performance, you can go online to cantus.org for information about tickets to the concert. You know, Eric, that is much more political than I would ever guess that you'd hear from a choral group.

ERIC LICHTE: We've been hanging around Robert too long, I guess.

KERRY MILLER: I got it.

ERIC LICHTE: This piece was originally, the idea-- we did this through the American Composers Forum, and they put us together with the Tubman Family Alliance here in Minneapolis, and the initial idea was that we'd have a composer work with the women and children that are there at the shelters and create texts that would be possibly even lullabies for the kids.

And our composer Maura Bosch began working with those folks. And she was getting OK stuff, but then we also discovered that the Tubman Family Alliance works with the men, basically guys that are there for court-ordered anger management. And this idea that we are a male ensemble and here are these guys that are there trying to make a change in their life.

And we just thought it was-- we were just getting all this great stuff from them when she went in for working with these guys. And it just seemed like the right thing to do. And Maura was very, very careful in how she put this all together. So it's not a work that is asking for, even necessarily asking for forgiveness of what happened. It is a work that is about the hope of change and that's what comes into the program that we're doing tomorrow night is this idea that we all have things that we make big mistakes in our lives, and that change is possible for us.

KERRY MILLER: I mean, you must have been worried that in some ways this would sound, you know, sympathetic--

ERIC LICHTE: Yeah.

KERRY MILLER: --to something that is widespread, and I mean, in Minnesota--

ERIC LICHTE: Absolutely.

KERRY MILLER: --10, 15, 20 women die every year from domestic violence, so I'm sure you had to be very careful about how you'd approach it.

ERIC LICHTE: Absolutely. And sort of two things, last Tuesday, we went back to Tubman and sang this song for the women and children. And I do a lot of speaking in front of people, and I was really nervous to bring the voice of these men that have done this. But their response was so warm and receptive that they saw the hope.

They saw that we were trying to treat this subject matter truthfully and honestly and not being apologetic about it. But they understood, and if this problem is to get any better, it is about if these guys actually do make a change in their lives. And Tubman believes in that, and they helped us see the light on that as we went through this project.

KERRY MILLER: Mr. Bly, is there another poem that you could read for us, that you'll be reading tomorrow night?

ROBERT BLY: Well, we're going through a series from early-- being born to childhood and so on and maybe something toward old age. Would that feel all right?

KERRY MILLER: That'd be great.

ROBERT BLY: And we were talking about men, so let's do one for women. This is "The Old Women" by the Norwegian poet, Rolf Jacobsen.

"The girls whose feet moved so fast, where did they go?

Those with knees like small kisses and sleeping hair

In the far reaches of time when they'd become silent,

Old women with narrow hands climb up stairs slowly

With huge keys in their bags,

And they look around and chat with small children at cemetery gates

In that big and bewildering country where winters are so long

And no one understands their expressions anymore.

Bow clearly to them and greet them with respect

Because they still carry everything with them like a fragrance,

A secret bite mark on the cheek,

A nerve deep in the palm of the hand somewhere,

Betraying who they are."

KERRY MILLER: That's beautiful.

ROBERT BLY: Isn't it?

ERIC LICHTE: Hmm.

KERRY MILLER: Nikki Giovanni, the poet and activist was in the studio last week with us, and she was talking about how her perspective and her poetry has changed as she suffered losses. She's getting older, too. She's in her 60s, and she's lost some good friends. And her mother recently died. And she said that she noticed that now as she writes poetry, she's taking a much more first person, personal perspective on it. I wondered if you have felt the same thing. Can you relate to what she's saying about that?

ROBERT BLY: Yes, I do. And all our early poems, in a way, are about others, and then gradually, we choose people to whom bad things are happening. And then gradually, as we get older, we realize they're happening to us.

[LAUGHTER]

Oh, really? And that's a surprise. And then our poems become quieter and more turned inward and probably more beautiful, certainly, Nikki's.

KERRY MILLER: More beautiful?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah, I think so.

KERRY MILLER: Why?

ROBERT BLY: Well, because, because to be able to take in your own sorrow and your own failures is such a tender thing. Your kids know immediately if you're doing that. They look at you differently. So I think that's one of the great gifts of older ages that you are able to stop concentrating on other people and think about your own grief and your own sorrow and your parents and--

KERRY MILLER: One of the things that she also talked about was wishing. I mean, she speaks to a lot of kids, goes into a lot of schools that she wishes that kids had more metaphors for things that-- and if they're not going to necessarily turn to poetry, that they just had more ways to express themselves. Have you thought about that?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah, but I think the whole-- Nikki grew up at a time when there was still a great deal of poetry and even taught in the schools. Now, we're going downhill culturally very fast, and the kids come up knowing nothing but the stupid television crap that they've been watching since they're very small. And I don't think there's enough grief in this country over what's happening with the children being given nothing but bad television. So I love things like this in which we talk about the genius of art itself. And am I making any sense?

KERRY MILLER: Yes, yes, you're making a lot of sense.

ROBERT BLY: So that's me. Biggest sadness in my life is to watch the decline culturally of the United States. And well, it saddens me because we had so much hope when we were in our 40s and 50s about the future of the United States.

KERRY MILLER: You-- I want to ask you about a collection of poetry of yours that came out in 2005 called My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy.

ROBERT BLY: Mhm.

KERRY MILLER: And I-- is it true that it took you four years to write those poems in that collection.

ROBERT BLY: I should have waited five or six, but--

KERRY MILLER: Why would you say that?

ROBERT BLY: Well, because some of them, they all look wonderful when you've written them, but then after a while, you say, whoa, that stanza doesn't fit. You know what I'm saying. And I think the old rule is do your book and then wait four years and then print it.

KERRY MILLER: I don't really know what you're saying. I mean, are you saying that you sometimes go back into your published collections and say, I wish that poem hadn't made it?

ROBERT BLY: Absolutely. I cross it out, or I tear it out of the book.

KERRY MILLER: [LAUGHS]

Why do you-- then why do you think the poem did get in?

ROBERT BLY: Well, because I wasn't completely sane at the time that I first-- there were things in it I loved, and I thought, oh, this is great.

[LAUGHTER]

Someone asked me to read the opening poem in this book. Shall I do that?

KERRY MILLER: That would be me, yes.

ROBERT BLY: That was you? It's called "The Dark Autumn Nights," and this is a Muslim, the main Muslim form of poetry in which you have 36 syllables to say what you have to say. And then you have to change the subject in the next stanza.

"Imagination is the door to the raven's house, so we are

Already blessed. The one nail that fell from the shoe

Lit the way for Newton to get home from the Fair.

Last night I heard a thousand holy women

And a thousand holy men apologize at midnight

Because there was too much triumph in their voices."

Third stanza--

"Those lovers, skinny and badly dressed, hated

By parents, did the work. All through the Middle Ages,

It was the lovers who kept the door open to heaven."

Fourth stanza--

"Walking home, we become distracted whenever

We pass apple orchards. We are still eating fruit

Left on the ground the night Adam was born."

Next one, two more.

"St. John of the Cross heard an Arab love poem

Through the bars and began his poem."

It was true. They put him in prison, and he heard an Arab come by, singing a love song, and he started his huge, great poem to God.

"St. John of the Cross heard an Arab love poem

Through the bars and began his poem. In Nevada, it was

Always THE falling horse that discovered the mine."

That's very bizarre, but anyway.

KERRY MILLER: Yes, it is.

[LAUGHTER]

I thought there was a deeper meaning that I just wasn't getting.

ROBERT BLY: Sometimes, a horse might fall through a thing, and they say, wow, there must be something underneath there. Anyway, I just heard it, and I put it in. So then the last, in the last paragraph of these poems, the writer in the Islamic tradition addresses himself. And that's why they have names like Rumi and Hafez. But we don't have that, so I have to use Robert. It's a little embarrassing, but here's the last stanza.

"Robert, you know well how much substance can be

Wasted by lovers, but I say, Blessings on those

Who go home through the dark autumn nights."

All right, thank you for asking for that.

KERRY MILLER: Did you, did you struggle with that last stanza when you would have to address yourself?

ROBERT BLY: Yeah.

KERRY MILLER: How do you feel about what you came up with--

ROBERT BLY: Well, I put--

KERRY MILLER: --years later?

ROBERT BLY: That's all right. I-- later, I did better, one toward the end.

"Robert, these high spirits don't prove you're a close friend of truth

But you have learned to drive your buggy over the prairies of human sorrow

Robert, there's not a single humiliation we could have done without

We are still perched on a pole

What will happen to us depends a lot on the wind"

You know, so you can-- mm, yeah.

KERRY MILLER: Let me fit in another call here from Mark in Excelsior. Hi, Mark, can you make it fairly quick?

MARK (OVER THE PHONE): Hi, hello, Robert.

KERRY MILLER: Hi.

ROBERT BLY: Yes.

MARK (OVER THE PHONE): Good morning, Cantus.

ERIC LICHTE: Good morning.

MARK (OVER THE PHONE): You mentioned Tibet, and that brings to mind-- I'll try to be brief. Some years ago, I heard a story of some Harvard musicologists who decided to go to bed and listen to the Tibetan monks chant. And in so doing, they were amazed by the, I guess, the sound of the combined sound of all the Tibetan voices as you can probably attest there.

These chants created a noticeable vibration in the room, and I guess, the vibration would, what I've heard even in recordings, would make my hair stand on end. The Harvard musicologists, of course, were-- are there such a thing as Harvard musicologists?

KERRY MILLER: Mark, I have to ask you to get to the point here because we want to hear one more song.

MARK (OVER THE PHONE): OK, very good. They were religious Western hymn people, and they asked the Tibetan monk, what is the difference between the Tibetan music and the Western religious music? The answer was in Western religious music, you sing to God.

KERRY MILLER: Hmm.

MARK (OVER THE PHONE): In the Tibetan music, the combined voices and the vibrations thereof become the voice of God.

ERIC LICHTE: Good one. Good one.

KERRY MILLER: Do you-- does that make sense to you--

ROBERT BLY: A lot of sense.

KERRY MILLER: --Robert Bly? 7:30, tomorrow night, Ted Mann Concert Hall, Cantus, Robert Bly reading his poetry, Cantus singing. If you'd like more information about that, go to cantusonline.org or by phone, 65-1209-6689. Guys, will you sing us out please. Thank you. Robert Bly, thank you for being here.

ROBERT BLY: Thank you.

CANTUS: (SINGING) There is sweet music here that softer falls

Than petals from blown roses on the grass,

Or night-dews on still waters between walls

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,

Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here, here are cool mosses deep,

And through the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream, the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

ROBERT BLY: Mm.

KERRY MILLER: Cantus tomorrow night, Robert Bly at the Ted Mann Concert Hall at the University of Minnesota. Eric Lichte, thank you so much for being here, and since we were talking a bit earlier about Nikki Giovanni with Robert Bly, the broadcast of a speech that she made while she was in the Twin Cities. This is Minnesota Public Radio.